Have you ever had a revelation?
I'm talking: random-middle-of-nowhere-revelation?
Whether you're a believer or you're the person who everyone refers to as "spiritual but not religious" or the simple topic of religion makes you cringe; you know what I'm talking about.
It's one of those moments in life where you're favorite movie, favorite show, song, etc... shows you something about life that you never saw coming and you somehow extract a life lesson from such.
This past week, I had one of those moments. That "AHA! God has a sense of humor" moments. I actually almost cried, even though it wasn't an emotional lesson, the fact that God spoke to me in that random moment, was really quite beautiful. I love how He works like that.
Here's what went down:
I had spent the day cleaning, running errands, keeping busy. Since I had this entire day to myself, I spent a good portion of my free time listening to sermons and worship music, something I do regularly. That's just my Pentecostal-Jesus hungry-roots taking action. I must say, when this happens... when I step away from the world and its distractions and quite frankly, all the junk that this world offers and instead, chase after God and His word, His presence... I AM AN EMOTIONAL MESS. Not hysterical, but emotional nonetheless.
I find love, beauty and lessons in the smallest things, the most, what seem to be, insignificant interactions. It really changes my perspective on life.
There really is no sweeter love than the love of Jesus and yes, our souls really do crave it... once we experience that movement in our lives, our very being won't settle for anything less. We always turn back to Him.
But back to what this article is all about:
Beauty Blenders and life and things.
I need to say, before I explain this particular moment: I'm no make-up guru. I can barely apply any form of make-up successfully. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to all this girl stuff, but just like life (pun intended), I try my best to make it work! So, when I said in the beginning of the article that God has a sense of humor, He really does... because how ironic that He would use a sponge to teach me a life lesson?!
So, as I was cleaning my room, I came across my beauty blenders. If you don't know what beauty blenders are, they're these make-up sponges used to apply make-up and if you're anything like me... I wait a little too long to wash them out.
When I saw all the crusty, old make-up on my sponges I felt really convicted, weird I know; but I like things to be in order, clean and organized. I once heard a quote by Elisabeth Elliot that said: "a disorder in the life, is a disorder in the soul" and call me crazy, but I have to completely agree. So, I'm looking at these dirty, over-used sponges and I felt God speak to my heart: "life is like a beauty blender".
I immediately teared up when I heard God speak this into my heart because I knew exactly what He was implying.
Life can get messy. Really messy and sometimes we're so busy and caught up in the rush of our daily lives that we honestly don't notice. Here's the pun though, just like the beauty blender, even though it's dirty... it creates something beautiful, it helps create a pretty picture, a work of art. It is inevitable that the beauty blender is going to get messy, it's expected to. It would not be doing it's job if it weren't getting messy.
That is just like our lives. It's expected to get messy. We are not always going to have everything figured out, it's not always going to look or feel pretty but it's still beautiful regardless.
Just like the beauty blender, clean up is necessary. Sometimes life, God, circumstances, are going to push us, require us that we clean up all the gunk that builds up in our lives.
Whether that means removing ourselves of toxic relationships, friendships, habits or even a state of mind: clean up is still necessary. Once we take the time to remove that junk in our lives, we can see better, think better, feel better and most importantly.. our lives will reflect that much needed change.
So, next time you feel like your life is a mess and you're a mess along with it: Don't beat yourself up. Everyone's life gets messy, bad things happen and good things too. The simple fact that we take time to realize that our life needs a "detox" shows maturity and potential within ourselves. Don't freak out, clean up whatever area of your life needs done so & then move forward, continue to see the beauty underneath the mess... because I promise you, if you take the time to look: the beauty is still there.
Lastly, but most importantly, don't apologize for cleaning your mess up. Don't apologize for realizing that that thing, person, relationship is too toxic to stay in your life. Life is too important and matters too much for us to become and stay complacent and accepting, living with a bad thing in our lives.
Move on, move forward and don't forget to stop and look at this crazy, beautiful life.
That's what matters